Recent research published in journals party politics suggests that a person’s underlying political beliefs strongly influence whether doubts about the legitimacy of an election lead him or her to participate in politics outside the voting booth. The findings show that conservative voters tend to be more politically active when they distrust the electoral system, whereas liberal voters tend to have higher rates of political participation regardless of their level of trust.
Colorado State University political scientists Erin B. Fitts and Kyle L. Sanders conducted a new study to better understand the relationship between electoral trust and political behavior. Their work focuses specifically on political participation without the right to vote. This type of participation includes activities other than voting, such as participating in protests, signing petitions, donating to campaigns, and attending political rallies.
The authors sought to explore how ideological differences change people’s responses to claims of election fraud. To do this, they relied on a concept known as operational ideology. Operational ideology refers to what people actually believe the government should do when it comes to specific policies, such as taxes or health care.
This concept is different from symbolic ideology or partisan identity. Symbolic ideology represents the labels people give themselves, such as calling themselves conservative or liberal. Because operational ideology captures an individual’s specific policy preferences, it often serves as a fundamental anchor for a broader political worldview.
The authors explain that politicians and elites often use specific messages and signals to sway their supporters. If conservative voters are inherently less likely to engage in political activities other than voting, political leaders may need to find other ways to engage with them. By questioning the fairness of elections, leaders may be able to stir up anger and a sense of urgency and encourage supporters to donate to their campaigns or attend rallies.
Fitts and Sanders previously analyzed survey data from the 2020 election. In that earlier study, they found that operational liberals were generally more politically active outside of voting. They also observed that operational conservatives became more aggressive when they lost confidence in the electoral process.
Between the 2020 and 2024 elections, the American political landscape underwent significant changes. The coronavirus pandemic, which dramatically changed how people vote in 2020, has largely subsided. Several states also changed their laws regarding early voting and mail-in voting.
Additionally, numerous lawsuits seeking to overturn the 2020 election results have been dismissed by courts. Federal prosecutors also convicted hundreds of people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Fitts and Sanders wondered whether these monumental changes meant that the strong link between conservative distrust and political participation would fade, or whether it had become a permanent fixture of American politics.
To explore these dynamics during the 2024 election, Fitts and Sanders used survey data from the American National Election Study. This large-scale survey captures the political attitudes and behavior of people across the United States. The researchers first analyzed a sample of 4,256 respondents from the 2024 survey.
They measured operational ideology by averaging each respondent’s self-reported preferences across seven different policy issues. This created a spectrum from operationally liberal to operationally conservative levels. To measure confidence in elections, the authors combined responses to two questions asked before the election.
These specific questions asked respondents how much they trusted election officials and whether they believed their votes would be counted accurately. Measuring confidence before an election takes place helps ensure that surveys don’t simply capture voters’ reactions to the wins or losses of their preferred candidates. Finally, the researchers measured political participation other than voting by counting the number of 12 different political activities each respondent reported participating in.
The statistical model included adjustment for factors such as age, education, income, race, and the strength of an individual’s party identification. The results for the 2024 data replicated the authors’ previous findings in 2020. Administrative liberals had higher levels of nonvoting political participation overall, but their participation did not vary significantly based on their confidence in elections.
On the other hand, the relationship between trust in elections and political participation was completely different for operational conservatives. Conservative conservatives, who trusted the electoral process, engaged in the lowest level of political participation without the right to vote. However, conservatives who reported low confidence in elections participated significantly more in these political activities.
This finding suggests that distrust primarily acts as a mobilizing force among conservative voters. To better understand why these patterns persist, Fitts and Saunders took their analysis a step further. They surveyed a subset of 1,857 people who participated in American National Election Surveys in both 2020 and 2024.
By following the same group of people for four years, scientists can track how attitudes and behaviors influence each other over time. The researchers used a statistical model to test whether a person’s ideology in 2020 predicts trust and participation in the 2024 election, or vice versa. Tracking data provided evidence that operational ideology serves as a stable foundation for shaping future attitudes.
Specifically, holding a more liberal governing ideology in 2020 was associated with increased trust in elections and nonvoting political participation four years later. Holding a more conservative management ideology in 2020 predicted lower trust and participation in 2024. Importantly, levels of trust and participation in 2020 did not significantly change operating ideology in 2024.
This indicates that policy preferences tend to be stable and influence individuals’ interpretations of political events over time. Trust and participation appear to be downstream effects of these deeply ingrained ideological commitments. The researchers noted that the model took into account the strength of participants’ partisan identity, and that these differences did not just reflect party loyalty.
Readers should not misinterpret these findings as absolute proof that electoral distrust consistently mobilizes conservatives in all political situations. The findings are based on data from two consecutive elections featuring candidate Donald Trump that heavily emphasized the narrative of voter fraud. The continued presence of these particular political cues may have had a unique impact on conservative voters during this period.
The authors note that this study relies on self-reported survey data and may be influenced by respondents’ desire to provide socially acceptable answers. Statistical models that follow people over time cannot conclusively prove that ideology causes changes in trust, only that the two are reliably linked. There may be other underlying psychological factors linking policy preferences and election skepticism that are not captured by these studies.
Future research should examine whether these patterns emerge in local and state elections that do not involve national politicians. Scientists could also study how voters react in election cycles where election integrity is not a major theme in media coverage or political speech. Continuing to track these voters could help determine whether decisive changes in political leadership ultimately change these deeply held views about election security.
High levels of political participation and trust are usually seen as signs of a functioning democracy. This study suggests that participation may be driven by a fundamental mistrust of democratic processes, complicating how we measure the stability of political systems.
The study, “Ideological Asymmetries in Election Trust and Nonvoting Political Participation,” was authored by Erin B. Fitts and Kyle L. Sanders.
